[HN Gopher] Significant breakthrough in search for Parkinson's b...
___________________________________________________________________
Significant breakthrough in search for Parkinson's biomarker
Author : sandGorgon
Score : 460 points
Date : 2023-05-01 09:12 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.michaeljfox.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.michaeljfox.org)
| MontyCarloHall wrote:
| I wonder if there is any relation to the odorous biomarker that
| dogs can sniff out in Parkinson's patients:
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36054272/
| gadders wrote:
| First discovered by this Scottish woman being able to detect
| the smell herself
| https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/sep/07/woman-who-ca...
| vrglvrglvrgl wrote:
| [dead]
| athoun wrote:
| For those living in the bay area, you should know that the
| groundwater in many areas is contaminated with TCE due to
| computer manufacturing industry which used it as a solvent. Dry
| cleaners are another common culprit of contamination to the
| groundwater. These groundwater plumes can extend for quite a
| large distance from the original site of contamination and seep
| into the first story of residences and buildings through vapor
| intrusion. The TCE solvent is directly linked to Parkinsons [1].
|
| Take a look at where you live on the California waterboard
| website [2] and look for nearby groundwater contamination sites.
| TCE / PCE contamination sites anywhere near your residence or
| workplace would put you at risk of getting Parkinsons. I know
| someone who got it and indeed they lived near a dry-cleaner that
| was leaching TCE into the groundwater decades ago. The solvent
| entires your residence through vapor intrusion, especially on the
| first floor or basement.
|
| [1] https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/news/story/common-dry-
| cleanin...
|
| [2]
| https://geotracker.waterboards.ca.gov/map/?CMD=runreport&mya...
| alixanderwang wrote:
| What can I do if I live near one of the red spots? Do air and
| water filters help?
| athoun wrote:
| If you're in an apartment building, moving to a higher floor
| would help as it affects the basement and first floor the
| most.
|
| If you're in a house, the same mitigations for radon exposure
| would likely work to reduce TCE as well.
|
| Regularly ventilating your home may also help keep the levels
| down.
|
| Lastly, there are typically many years of exposure required
| before you notice any symptoms. So moving would be another
| viable option.
| theGnuMe wrote:
| Open the windows or move. Your tap water is unaffected, you'd
| have to be on a well to be impacted. But activated carbon
| water filters work to remove it.
| alexpotato wrote:
| This Twitter thread on the specifics of how dry cleaning retail
| stores contribute to the problem is an excellent quick
| overview:
|
| https://twitter.com/realEstateTrent/status/14378028033139220...
| m00dy wrote:
| Why is still allowed to leach tce into groundwater
| daniel_reetz wrote:
| It's not allowed. These are old plumes and they stay around
| for a long time and are very expensive to clean up.
| whamlastxmas wrote:
| Cool, let's make the companies that caused it pay for it
| mrguyorama wrote:
| That's clearly socialism and making companies pay for
| damage they cause and their externalaties is oppressive
| regulation. We should instead reduce the EPA's power
| until they are a shell of an organization. How else are
| we going to get our burning rivers back?
| beambot wrote:
| Many of those companies no longer exist...
| zymhan wrote:
| That's why we have the EPA Superfund program
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Superfund
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| There are a lot of superfund sites, man. And it sucks
| that the FeddyGov is on the hook to cleanup the mess that
| big corps make.
| acchow wrote:
| It should be renamed "minifund" given how small the fund
| is today and how few sites they actually clean up
|
| The reinstatement of the excise tax in 2022 may actually
| be harmful to its own environment. It's an import tax on
| crude oil, which will encourage the domestic oil industry
| leading to an _importing_ of pollution.
| Fatnino wrote:
| Santa Clara county has the most superfund sites.
| athoun wrote:
| It's not supposed to leach into the groundwater, but nobody
| is enforcing the companies that are handling these chemicals
| to ensure they don't get into the groundwater supply. Many of
| the worst contaminations in the area were caused by big tech
| companies such as HP who didn't realize their underground TCE
| tanks were leaking whoops.
|
| As of 2023 only two states have banned TCE (Minnesota and New
| York), and the federal government has yet to do anything to
| control it. It has and will continue to be used extensively
| in industrial application such as at electronic assembly
| lines, dry-cleaners, mechanics, air force bases, coffee
| decaffeination, textile industry, and the list goes on. The
| best you can do is live in a highly residential area which is
| far from the locations where any of these business could
| operate.
| c3534l wrote:
| My grandmother had Parkinson's and it was awful. How long until I
| can go to the doctor, get some blood drawn, and see if I'll
| develop it one day?
| PaulKeeble wrote:
| You could do a genetic test, Parkinsons has well associated
| genetic markers and consumer level companies can do testing of
| this (and others). 23 and me have a bit on it.
|
| https://www.23andme.com/topics/health-predispositions/parkin...
| mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
| Although if 23andme say you don't have the genes, you might
| still have them. Also they'll probably sell your data.
| Palomides wrote:
| it's not a trivially heritable disease, genetic testing can't
| tell you with any real confidence if you'll develop symptoms
|
| edit: you may be able to contact a parkinson's genetics
| counselor specialist which may be more useful
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| What would you do if you found out you would? (I ask as someone
| whose great-grandfather, great-uncle, and grandfather all had
| Parkinson's.)
|
| I've avoided any testing because, as far as I know, there's
| nothing preventative to be done. I'd love to hear otherwise.
| I've broached the subject with my last two primary care
| physicians and both advised that there was no point in knowing.
| techwiz137 wrote:
| If you know for certain, then you might do things you
| otherwise wouldn't.
|
| E.g decide to have children or not, plan a will. Live life to
| the max. Potentially get a head start on treatment if one
| were ultimately available, even if super experimental and
| maybe even not working in the end.
|
| Honestly, there are many reasons to know beforehand and not a
| lot of reasons to not know.
| SnowHill9902 wrote:
| Parkinson's does not prevent any of those.
| agsnu wrote:
| Ignorance is bliss
| m3kw9 wrote:
| So if you gonna die anyways you won't live life to the max?
| Probably better off not finding out and live life to the
| max without the thought of it
| Tagbert wrote:
| Things like deciding when to retire. You might want to
| retire earlier and spend time doing things instead of
| waiting to retire to get maximum retirement payout.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| But will you really enjoy your days with that cloud over
| your head, if I were to choose I wouldn't want to know
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| Pick up a nicotine addiction.
|
| Seriously, it has long been understood that people who smoke
| have dramatically lower levels of parkinsons. It comes from
| the neuroprotective properties of nicotine. You don't have to
| become a smoker, you could theoretically use any of the other
| forms (vape, gum, patch)
| victor106 wrote:
| https://www.apdaparkinson.org/article/smoking-and-
| parkinsons...
|
| Smoking and Nicotine addiction are still bad.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| You don't have to smoke cigarettes to get nicotine. Using
| a patch just gives you nicotine in a very safe way, and
| nicotine itself isn't particularly harmful.
| caeril wrote:
| Nicotine is wonderful. 2mg and 4mg lozenges are readily
| available, you don't have to take up smoking to get it.
| It's excellent for many, many things: cognition, focus,
| appetite control, positive habit formation, etc.
|
| Addiction is literally its only downside.
| jjfoooo4 wrote:
| Curious if you have any links to support lower incidence of
| Parkinsons for smokers. I found this, which states that
| nicotine does not slow the disease once started:
| https://www.michaeljfox.org/news/nicotine-patch-not-
| benefici...
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| I'd encourage you to just search google scholar for
| "nicotine and parkinsons" there are dozens and dozens of
| studies. It's been well established for decades now, as
| it stood out, especially in the past, that cigarette
| smokers weren't developing parkinsons as expected. Here
| is a recent meta study though:
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01
| 674...
|
| There have also been numerous studies that have found
| that starting nicotine once symptoms begin is too late,
| with little or no effect. It is hypothesized that there
| is some critical point that once crossed, nicotine no
| longer has an effect. Parkinsons is believed to slowly
| develop over years or decades, and nicotine stunts this
| early progression.
| melling wrote:
| Yes, the age old debate of knowing versus not knowing.
|
| I think I'll skip it because it's not productive.
|
| However, I will point out that your average billionaire with
| a few decades of advanced notice might be willing to fund
| research:
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/kerryadolan/2022/12/09/exclusiv.
| ..
| nisegami wrote:
| I think if you find out young enough you can probably try to
| follow a different trajectory in life. Maybe abstain from
| stuff like finding a partner, having kids, buying a home or
| saving for retirement. Make plans to end up in circumstances
| where you're eligible for MAID and just vibe until you're
| ready to use it.
| c3534l wrote:
| Well, Michael J. Fox was diagnosed exceptionally young.
| Most people only suffer when they're of retired age.
| c3534l wrote:
| That's a good question. I'm not sure. But it feels like
| something I'd want to either prepare myself for or just have
| the relief it won't happen to me.
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| > I've avoided any testing because, as far as I know, there's
| nothing preventative to be done. I'd love to hear otherwise.
|
| Parkinson's is a nutritional disorder combined with genetic
| risk.
|
| Zinc and Parkinson's
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8125092/
|
| Pyridoxine (B6) and Parkison's
| https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ajmg.b.30198
|
| Riboflavin and Parkinson's https://www.frontiersin.org/articl
| es/10.3389/fneur.2017.0033...
|
| Nutrition and Parkinson's
| https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02938409
|
| https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnagi.2014.0003.
| ..
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00747.
| ..
|
| https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12883-014-0212-1
| giantg2 wrote:
| There are lifestyle factors that are supposed to slow the
| onset and progression. Granted most of those, like exercise,
| are supposed to be things we do anyways.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| >What would you do if you found out you would?
|
| There's quite a few big decisions to make, no? Preparing
| financially, making plans for when you're going to retire or
| what to do before, whether you want to have kids and put them
| through this, and so on.
|
| If I found out I had a degenerative disease at the very least
| I'd opt for an egg or sperm donation and not delay having
| kids. You probably don't want to be in declining health while
| they're growing up.
| zabzonk wrote:
| > I'd probably opt for an egg or sperm donation
|
| so that any kids produced would have a high probability of
| having the disease too?
| Barrin92 wrote:
| no, so that they don't have a high probability of having
| a disease because I'd not be passing it on. How did you
| read anything else into that statement?
| giantg2 wrote:
| It could be more clear. Something like "use a donor".
| "Donation" can go either way (giving or receiving).
| neals wrote:
| As I am now casually interested in the subject, what's a good
| resource to find out why this disease is hard to detect and cure
| and various other interesting facts?
| photochemsyn wrote:
| One neglected issue in the article and the comments is that
| Parkinson's is associated with exposure to various neurotoxic
| substances including organophosphorous pesticides:
|
| https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/42/5/1476/623189
|
| > "In a population-based case-control study, we assessed
| frequency of household pesticide use for 357 cases and 807
| controls... Frequent use of any household pesticide increased
| the odds of PD by 47% [odds ratio (OR) = 1.47, (95% confidence
| interval (CI): 1.13, 1.92)]; frequent use of products
| containing OPs increased the odds of PD more strongly by 71%
| [OR = 1.71, (95% CI: 1.21, 2.41)] and frequent
| organothiophosphate use almost doubled the odds of PD."
|
| This is further supported by previous discoveries of
| Parkinson's brought on by exposure to an opiate analog MPTP, as
| well as several other pesticides:
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5345642/
|
| > "The identification of MPTP, a relatively simple compound
| which causes selective degeneration of the substantia nigra
| after systemic administration, has had an a significant impact
| on the understanding and treatment of Parkinson's disease (PD)
| over the last 30 years."
|
| It's rather curious that this foundation neglects to discuss
| any of this, but it is funded by entities affiliated with
| pharmaceutical manufacturers so perhaps it's not something they
| want to bring attention to? It does fit with a general pattern
| of attempting to blame diseases affiliated with environmental
| exposures on genetics, however.
| twic wrote:
| This might be useless to you, but OMIM is the canonical
| database of genetic diseases, and has tons of information:
|
| https://www.omim.org/entry/168600
|
| https://www.omim.org/entry/168601
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| A cursory browse of wikipedia is my first port of call, that's
| what chatgpt bases their answer on as well (what the other
| commenter pointed out).
|
| Yeah it's not verified etc, but it's more accessible than
| reading the sources it cites itself on.
| pyryt wrote:
| [flagged]
| sph wrote:
| Can we have a line on the HN guidelines saying _" telling
| people you asked about <topic> on ChatGPT doesn't make for
| interesting discussion. Please refrain from doing so."_
|
| Especially in this case where you don't even tell what did
| you find out, only that you did ask ChatGPT. Good for you.
| nkotov wrote:
| It's the new LMGTFY
| sph wrote:
| But posing as helpful instead of sarcastic, yet equally
| annoying.
| nequo wrote:
| Why feed yourself with potential misinformation that you
| don't know the true source of and you might never double
| check?
| ethbr0 wrote:
| > _Why feed yourself with potential misinformation that you
| don't know the true source of and you might never double
| check?_
|
| Because I enjoy reading HN?
| nequo wrote:
| When you run out of HN, do you hit up ChatGPT?
| ethbr0 wrote:
| I ask ChatGPT to write me a comment thread in the style
| of Hacker News.
| garyrob wrote:
| Oh, that was just too easy... :)
| insanitybit wrote:
| As opposed to? Unless you're actually going to read
| individual papers, vet the authors, have the baseline
| statistical knowledge to understand the results, etc,
| you're always going to be susceptible to potential
| misinformation. This HN topic is a good example of the
| difficulty of verifying information.
|
| Who's to say that ChatGPT doesn't provide a better job of
| filtering it out?
| nequo wrote:
| Yes, I would start with Google Scholar, or at least
| Wikipedia because it tries to provide sources for each
| statement that it makes.
|
| > Who's to say that ChatGPT doesn't provide a better job
| of filtering it out?
|
| No one because no one knows what sources ChatGPT is
| blending together in its sentences.
| kanzure wrote:
| > I would start with Google Scholar
|
| You actually should vet everything you read through
| Google Scholar too. There is a pervasive belief of
| consensus in academic science and unfortunately
| individually verifying information is the only thing we
| know that actually works- not political consensus.
| kfrzcode wrote:
| [flagged]
| nequo wrote:
| I am not trolling. I don't recommend engaging in a good-
| faith dialogue with someone by prefacing it with your
| belief that they are trolling.
|
| If you're basing your trust in ChatGPT on the claim that
| it is trained on Wikipedia, you might as well read
| Wikipedia instead because then you also see the sources
| for each claim, _or the fact that certain claims are
| unsourced._ ChatGPT will not let you know if a certain
| claim is more controversial, nor give you further sources
| to read if you want to know the background of a claim.
| kfrzcode wrote:
| I don't have trust for things, I build trust with other
| humans if earned, potentially dogs. Beyond that there's
| no reason to trust with objectivity and reason.
|
| Digression aside, I would impress upon you I haven't
| claimed, nor do I believe what you're claiming I have. I
| am simply providing you with a slice of the larger
| original academic paper that provides great, rigorous,
| and peer-reviewed documentation of precisely what GPT is,
| and what it's trained on.
|
| From this paper you'll perhaps gather an instinct that
| these folks working on this problem are widely aware of
| the extremely well-known concept of "open source
| knowledge" and were well considered in their application
| of pruning data to their needs.
|
| I believe you'll perhaps further gather retrospective
| insight upon the idea that GPT is doing anything more
| than giving you a T9-predictive-autotext for the entirety
| of that dataset; meaning you can try to coax it into
| saying anything you want but if the p-values aren't right
| or the predictive potential of a given token "coming up
| next" isn't there, that's just.. how it goes.
|
| It's data. It's not quite the tower of Babel, but we'll
| get there soon enough. Kind of like how all the fancy 3D
| video game rendering software that looks incredible these
| days is still just manipulating tuples and vectors with
| matrix calculations, stuff you could do on paper but why
| would you do that math to describe a picture when you
| could just draw it.
|
| ChatGPT is just drawing the pictures (in this poorly
| chosen analogy), and giving us the cool graphics. The
| math is all pretty benign and based in the fundamentals
| of neural networks, not even the more fanciful CV and
| deeper trained NLP can get to.
|
| Info-scientists, I wonder what the "rainbow table" of all
| language and ideas etc. that would be relevant to a
| latent language learning model would be... this is a
| wonder to me because I lack the sufficient knowledge and
| field expertise.
| [deleted]
| parkersweb wrote:
| I'd recommend Rory Cellan Jones on Substack [1]. He was the
| technology correspondent for the BBC until a few years ago -
| and is now retired partly because of the onset of Parkinson's.
|
| As a result he's devoted much of his retirement to reporting on
| innovation in treating and managing Parkinson's.
|
| [1] https://rorycellanjones.substack.com
| shadowtree wrote:
| Interesting that big flu outbreaks cause a long term spike in
| Parkinson's - how much more will be traced back to the impact of
| viruses?
|
| Saw that come up as a worry around Covid, seems the loss of
| smell/taste is a commonality with Parkison. We will not know for
| a decade or two though, but these biomarkers might help
| accelerate measuring the impact.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| I am currently struggling with the idea of going back to
| vaping, having quit 3 years ago following covid, because
| nicotine has consistently shown to be a strong drug for fending
| off parkinsons.
| sbmsr wrote:
| Would nicotine patches help?
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| I could do that, but I smoked cigarettes for 7 years and
| then vaped for 9 years. So I don't know if I could jump
| back into nicotine but hold off on the smoking/vaping
| aspect of it.
| sph wrote:
| Funny tangent, I quit vaping on 2 Jan 2020 after the
| worst flu I have ever had (after a flight abroad.. early
| COVID?) and while I was finally successful after a decade
| of quitting, it killed all my motivation and energy.
|
| Then I got diagnosed with ADHD, got stimulant meds which
| restored the energy and then some, and it was clear I had
| been self medicating all my life with nicotine and I was
| completely lost without. If one day I lose access to
| stimulant meds, you better believe I'm back on the patch
| and/or the vape.
|
| But in general dude, do not joke about nicotine. You are
| 3 years clean, it's incredibly hard to quit. If you done
| it once, it doesn't mean you'll do it twice. Maybe
| avoiding Parkinson's by vaping is a terrible excuse.
| You've never known addiction if you believe this time
| you'll be able to control it.
| karussell wrote:
| Do you have any sources? Or did you mean that ironically,
| because as a smoker you die earlier than the average gets
| Parkinson's?
| graeme wrote:
| It's very plausible in 10-20 years or so. Studies found a
| massive increase in acting out of dreams amongst those who had
| Covid.
|
| This acting out of dreams is a very strong precursor to
| Parkinson's. According to this, 80% of people with it get
| Parkinson's within 20 years.
|
| https://www.salon.com/2023/04/24/long-parkinsons/
| yosito wrote:
| Well that certainly puts a dark twist on the phrase "living
| the dream".
| avazhi wrote:
| Not to unnecessarily shit on the parade, but I'm not sure this is
| by itself all that exciting, and calling it a breakthrough seems
| like an exaggeration. Diagnosing Parkinson's isn't really an
| issue - worst case you give the putative sufferer Levadopa and
| see if they respond. If they do, they've got Parkinson's.
|
| Not sure how much this really changes the time horizon for an
| actual treatment. It's progress, ostensibly, but I'd quibble with
| categorising it as a breakthrough.
| fatfingerd wrote:
| Finding subtypes before clear symptoms is obviously superior
| for testing earlier intervention and allowing patients to make
| a living will with fuller faculties.
| echelon wrote:
| > I'm not sure this is by itself all that exciting
|
| This actually seems pretty significant.
|
| 1) It gets us closer to understanding the pathology:
|
| >> It also suggests that alpha-synuclein aggregation in spinal
| fluid is not a life-long trait but rather acquired as part of a
| disease biology process that ultimately gives rise to symptoms.
|
| 2) It gives us a higher resolution of detection.
|
| >> aSyn-SAA can distinguish Parkinson's from control volunteers
| with a stunningly robust sensitivity of 88 percent and
| specificity of 96 percent.
|
| 3) It shows different disease subtypes or mechanisms:
|
| >> These results suggest that not all cases of clinical
| Parkinson's symptoms are associated with the accumulation of
| alpha-synuclein aggregates as detected by this assay, and that
| LRRK2 variant carriers, in particular, may not show this
| pathology.
|
| 4) It gets us earlier signal:
|
| >> This finding suggests that synuclein pathology could be
| detectable by this assay earlier than dopamine dysfunction is
| seen with DAT imaging, extending the window in which it may be
| possible to intervene with preventive therapies.
|
| This is a valuable tool that will shed light on the entire
| disease pathology and guide further research and investigation
| into treatments.
| threeseed wrote:
| They are working towards not requiring spinal fluid for the
| test.
|
| So it's possible that it could end up being a non-invasive test
| that could be done at regular intervals early in life.
|
| Especially given that 15% of people with Parkinson's have a
| family history.
| PaulKeeble wrote:
| Biomarkers are extremely important in any disease. They make
| diagnosis very clear cut but that isn't the main reason they
| are necessary.
|
| What a biomarker really does is focus research for treatments,
| you know precisely what it is you have to change and to what
| level and how to measure it. This makes it a easy to target
| drug development and to measure whether it works. Without a
| biomarker you never know if the drug being developed will help
| or not and most drug companies stay away from diseases without
| one.
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| The problem the OP pointed out is a valid one. Alpha-
| synuclein is a biomarker for many neurological diseases
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24262191/
|
| So you might say someone has a marker for Parkinson's and
| they might get another neurological disorder.
|
| They tried these treatments in Alzheimer's and it failed.
| Why? because it is just another symptom and not the
| fundamental cause of the disease.
|
| It is a good biomarker for poor health, but it is not a good
| biomarker for any specific disorder.
| bonnoechismar wrote:
| [flagged]
| skottk wrote:
| Had to start researching this when a family member was recently
| diagnosed.
|
| Parkinson's has many forms and many causes. There's a big divide
| between Parkinson's _disease_ (idiopathic Parkinson's) and
| Parkinsonism from a variety of sources - stroke, drug-induced,
| and so on. There are also other conditions, like progressive
| supranuclear palsy, that are considered either to masquerade as
| Parkinsonism or to constitute another cause of Parkinsonism.
|
| Recommended treatments differ by the root cause of the symptoms.
| Some of the treatments that are recommended for one form may be
| contraindicated for other forms, or for different stages. For
| example, the recommended dopamine agonists are also the primary
| cause of Parkinson's hallucinations, so you have to trade back
| some strength and mobility if those start.
|
| Something like 80% of Parkinsonism derives from idiopathic
| Parkinson's Disease.
|
| Overall, it feels like we're really just getting started on these
| conditions. For decades, it's been thought to be primarily a
| motor disorder, but it turns out that there are scads of
| cognitive symptoms that develop years earlier than motor
| symptoms.
| TexanFeller wrote:
| > Parkinson's has many forms and many causes.
|
| A lot of my family were farmers. I've had close relatives die
| with severe Parkinsons, primarily those that farmed their whole
| life. Their theory was that it was really exposure to a lot of
| toxic farm chemicals. I can imagine Parkinsons turning out to
| be several different conditions with similar symptoms.
| jjeaff wrote:
| My grandmother had 10 siblings. They grew up farming and they
| picked cotton every summer. Of the 11 siblings, I believe 8
| of them have parkinsons. They have long thought exposure to
| whatever pesticides were used on the cotton may have caused
| the parkinson's late in life. I believe the siblings that
| don't have parkinsons were those that for whatever reason,
| had much less exposure to the cotton. Both parents lived
| pretty long and neither had the disease. There are two sets
| of twins, one identical, one fraternal. I'm not sure which of
| those have it. I've long thought that a case study could be
| made just about that family of 13.
| felixyz wrote:
| Certain pesticides are confirmed causes of Parkinsons. Don't
| remember which now, but could look it up.
| caeril wrote:
| Maybe. The correlation is weak. If you're looking for a
| stronger correlation, try obesity.
|
| People who are very overweight or obese in middle age
| (35-55) are significantly more likely to develop
| Parkinson's after 60, even if they lose the weight prior to
| diagnosis. Now this could be a pure lifestyle-correlation,
| but my spidey sense suggests it's causative, knowing how
| causative obesity is for SO MANY other degenerative and
| chronic diseases.
|
| The best advice you can give anyone, at any time, for the
| prevention of nearly every poor health outcome we have a
| name for is and always will be: don't get fat; if you're
| fat, stop being fat.
| TaupeRanger wrote:
| No, none are "confirmed causes". There are _mild
| associations_ between the use of certain pesticides and
| Parkinson 's, but much lower than the overall genetic risk
| factors, and there's always the possibility of confounding
| factors in the studies.
| daveguy wrote:
| What's your source, if you don't mind me asking? I ask
| because some pesticides are well established to be linked
| to increased risk of parkinson's. Including carbamates
| (3.5x), organophosphorus (2x) and organoclorine (2x).
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33991619/
| zug_zug wrote:
| There are actually a number of different pesticides that
| are linked to parkinson's. It's especially strong for
| farmers who get a much larger dose than the people
| consuming the food - simply type "parkinson's farmer
| pesticide" into google scholar. One example is Paraquat,
| which is already banned in numerous countries but not US
| [1]. Aside from this Parkinson's link being established in
| farmers who use Paraquat, it's found it rats too.
|
| Another is rotenone [2].
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraquat
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/rotenone
| michelb wrote:
| In The Netherlands we have A LOT of farmers with parkinsons.
| Most, if not all cases seem to be related to
| Roundup/Glyphosate.
| m463 wrote:
| I wonder how much of this gets "downstream" to people
| eating the food produced.
|
| EDIT: https://www.ewg.org/foodnews/summary.php
|
| _The 2023 DIRTY DOZEN
|
| Of the 46 items included in our analysis, these 12 fruits
| and vegetables were most contaminated with pesticides:_
| Strawberries Spinach Kale, collard and
| mustard greens Peaches Pears
| Nectarines Apples Grapes Bell and
| hot peppers Cherries Blueberries
| Green beans
| adultSwim wrote:
| Personally, I'm much more concerned about the risks to
| farm workers than risks to the general population.
| sph wrote:
| The carnivore doesn't sound so idiotic viewed under that
| lens. The thing about mammals is that they have liver and
| kidneys, which are _remarkably_ good at filtering toxins.
| Certainly much better than a plant.
|
| I wonder if the reason many feel better eating only meat
| is that they avoid pesticides that wreck havoc on their
| body. I know I do feel like a million bucks after just 10
| days, even though it's extremely boring.
| hbarka wrote:
| Roundup/Glyphosate is such a nasty chemical. Farmers use it
| in practice regularly for crop desiccation [1] in order to
| yield more harvest cycles. Why do we still allow it knowing
| what we know?
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crop_desiccation
| potta_coffee wrote:
| Monsanto is big money, that's why. Just like everything
| else in our blown out civilization.
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| Because cash rules everything around me ("CREAM"), aka
| dolla dolla bill yall.
|
| Or to put it another way, roundup is made by a large,
| influential company (Monsanto) and they can pressure
| regulatory agencies & politicians.
| jowdones wrote:
| My father, an agricultural engineer who worked with
| herbicides and pesticides for some 30 years, passed away a
| few days ago from advanced Parkinson's at the age of 82. Now
| he wasn't exactly in his teens anymore but his 87 years old
| brother who was a teacher is in fairly good shape for his age
| while my father became a ghost of a man (in end stage you
| cannot even swallow anymore).
| peignoir wrote:
| I hope this will also help to advance the research on Lewy Bodies
| Dementia (also correlated by mis folded alpha synuclein
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| This is everything and nothing all at once.
|
| Synucleinopathies are found in many neurological diseases. They
| even find it in Long COVID.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9108014/
|
| This is a marker for many diseases. They still have not found the
| trigger for Synucleinopathies, which I believe is a nutrient
| deficiency causing oxidative stress and zinc is at the top of my
| list.
|
| https://academic.oup.com/hmg/article/23/11/2791/621896
| https://academic.oup.com/brain/article/142/8/2380/5523051
|
| By the way, this is the same reason peop[le loose their sense of
| smell with COVID. And I believe COVID is going to cause a rise in
| Parkinson's cases.
| giantg2 wrote:
| If the loss of smell is so brief, why would it cause this
| later?
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| It might not.
|
| If the build up of alpha-synuclein is rapid during COVID that
| might only cause a temporary issue if the person can still
| break it down. These people might not go on to get
| Parkinson's.
|
| Matrix metalloproteinases break down alpha-synuclein.
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21330369/
|
| And it's cofactor, the metal that increases MMP3 activity is
| zinc (and calcium).
|
| https://www.uniprot.org/uniprotkb/P08254/entry
|
| This is why I keep screaming that zinc is probably a central
| deficiency to both of these disorders in some people.
| nailer wrote:
| On a tangent, they also know the enzyme that causes SIDS and
| should have a testing program in place soon.
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| This sounds really interesting! Can you provide a link to more
| info?
| meindnoch wrote:
| "A 2022 study found that infants who died of SIDS exhibited
| significantly lower specific activity of
| butyrylcholinesterase, an enzyme involved in the brain's
| arousal pathway, shortly after birth. This can serve as a
| biomarker to identify infants with a potential autonomic
| cholinergic dysfunction and elevated risk for SIDS."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIDS
| giantg2 wrote:
| Maybe this can stop the false prosecutions too. Or would
| they not be able to measure the enzymes in an autopsy?
| jpk2f2 wrote:
| May help, but it's still only one (potential) cause of
| SIDS.
|
| SIDS encompasses a wide variety of risk factors. For
| example, heart pathologies are another common cause of
| SIDS. Additionally, stomach sleeping and inadvertent
| suffocation are other common risk factors.
| DavidPeiffer wrote:
| If anyone wants to help the cause, PPMI is a large scale study
| funded by the Michael J Fox Foundation to help find early
| biomarkers.
|
| Even if you have no history of Parkinson's in your family, you
| can participate in the study which is primarily surveys. It's
| easy to participate, and can help find more early indications of
| a horrible disease.
|
| https://www.michaeljfox.org/ppmi-clinical-study
| mahmoudhossam wrote:
| Unfortunately US and Canada residents only for now.
| DrBazza wrote:
| Is this a consequence of the 'woman who can smell Parkinson's'?
|
| https://www.parkinsons.org.uk/news/meet-woman-who-can-smell-...
| lambdaba wrote:
| I just found out about Thiamine (vitamin B1) megadose therapy for
| Parkinson's:
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3762356/
|
| Another study: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26505466/
|
| > Conclusions: Administration of parenteral high-dose thiamine
| was effective in reversing PD motor and nonmotor symptoms. The
| clinical improvement was stable over time in all the patients.
| From our clinical evidence, we hypothesize that a dysfunction of
| thiamine-dependent metabolic processes could cause selective
| neural damage in the centers typically affected by this disease
| and might be a fundamental molecular event provoking
| neurodegeneration. Thiamine could have both restorative and
| neuroprotective action in PD.
|
| This experience report of halting Parkinson's:
| https://youtu.be/iuSOQOTyB9w
| c_hagau wrote:
| Published in the "Journal of Integrative and Complementary
| Medicine", "The leading peer-reviewed journal providing
| scientific research for the evaluation and integration of
| complementary medicine into mainstream medical practice."
|
| "Integrative and Complementary Medicine" is a fancy way of
| saying quackery.
|
| Also, the video you linked to is on a channel run by a person
| describing himself as "a certified functional medicine
| practitioner & naturopathic nutritional therapist [..]. He
| enjoys making videos on a wide variety of health-related topics
| ranging from nutritional biochemistry to circadian biology,
| animal-based nutrition, and the dangers of electromagnetic
| radiation."
|
| No further questions, your honor.
| canadiantim wrote:
| My pet peeve is people dismissing potentially very valuable
| scientific results because they're afraid of quackery...
|
| Yes we should be cautious but no we should not dismiss. In
| fact I consider myself very fortunate for stumbling on this
| information as it may be very helpful for someone I love and
| I want to explore every possible way that can help.
| pelorat wrote:
| Reminds me of this post I saw on CompSci Reddit once. A
| person claimed to have made an O(n) algorithm for finding
| loops in a graph (or something like that), and he posted
| the source code. The comments were all in the line "big if
| true, but I'm going to have to see a peer reviewed paper"
| to which he answered along the lines of: "I'm paid to write
| code, I'm not paid to write papers. I made this algorithm
| solve a problem at work, take it or leave it".
|
| The thread died without anyone actually checking if his
| algorithm worked or not.
|
| Who knows...
| kfrzcode wrote:
| Agreed; this is akin to the "woo" applied writ large to the
| lucid dreaming phenomenology; or anything "metaphysical"
| crossing into "empirical" -- I have a fondness for the UAP
| topic and it's poster child for this effect. I know there's
| a grain of truth in the bucket but the wackery is beyond my
| ability to dredge.
| insanitybit wrote:
| This isn't an unfounded fear of quackery, they've supported
| their view to an extent.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| It's not fear, it's challenging a conclusion made by people
| based on their credentials. If the science stands up to
| scrutiny and peer review, then great, but if it doesn't
| then it's not true.
|
| The quackery label comes in not from the science but from
| the people behind it and the monikers / titles that they
| applied to themselves - unrecognized and not formally
| tested monikers / titles.
|
| The formal testing is so that there's a proven and
| traceable minimum knowledge and background behind a
| person's statements. Like a bachelor's degree for a
| software engineer vs a two week boot camp.
| andreskytt wrote:
| You did not, in fact, stumble upon information. You
| stumbled on a person making statements. There's a
| difference, especially when lives are at stake.
| tgv wrote:
| Do explore it, but check other (reputable) sources for the
| effect on Parkinson and for counter-indications (although
| there don't seem to be obvious ones).
|
| The journal, however, is bad. Looking for articles, the
| first I found claims that sounds of nature have a positive
| effect on gambling addicts, something unwarranted by the
| actual experimental conditions. The peer review and
| editorial process seem to be lacking.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| I mean sounds of nature have a positive effect on most
| people so that sounds like low hanging fruit, lol.
| sokoloff wrote:
| That's the precise essence of why quackery is dangerous.
| People are searching for "every possible way that can help"
| and quackery can easily exploit that natural tendency. (I
| am not qualified to render any opinion on whether this
| specific protocol is quackery.)
| canadiantim wrote:
| That's also the precise essence of throwing out the baby
| with the bathwater.
|
| I'd much rather have the information in front of me so I
| can evaluate it and make my own determinations. If the
| parent commenter had their way I would've never seen this
| information. Now I can actually vet it out and do my own
| research.
|
| I think it's infinitely more dangerous to deprive people
| of information.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _much rather have the information in front of me so I
| can evaluate it and make my own determinations_
|
| This is the danger. Most people, myself included, are not
| qualified to make that determination alone. In this case,
| as expected, it looks like it was crap [1][2].
|
| I'm not arguing in any way for censoring anything. But
| there is legitimate danger when people, often desperate,
| compare legitimate medical research, which will be
| subdued, with quackery, which will be ostentatious, and
| then, worst case, reject the actual medicine or hurt
| themselves trying to administer rogue therapies.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35771376
|
| [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35771048
| 1234letshaveatw wrote:
| One notable exception to that is Kyrie Irving and other
| Covid vaccine skeptics, who were amazingly somehow able
| to "do their own research"
| pfisherman wrote:
| Counterpoint. Historically people have not been able to
| evaluate these types of claims. See the history of snake
| oil salesmen and the origins of the Food Drug and
| Cosmetics Act.
|
| I don't think it is a problem when people look at stuff,
| think it is interesting and try something relatively
| benign on themselves. For me the problem is when people
| start trying to play doctor without medical training or
| license.
| canadiantim wrote:
| I agree with you in regards to the dangers of snake oil
| and snake oil salesmen and the general inability for the
| vast majority of people to properly vet medical
| information.
|
| That being said, I would say it's unfortunately by
| necessity that people start trying to play doctor. I live
| in Canada, our healthcare system is currently in shambles
| such that it's impossible to get timely care. Even the
| care we do get is time-limited and only focused on saving
| your life (which is great, but ignores the value of
| improving quality of life too). Also most of our medical
| interventions are so far behind the state of the art due
| to a Byzantine regulatory process that anyone actually
| trying to help a loved one with a health issue is forced
| to take matters into their own hands otherwise we fall
| through the cracks. The medical system is simply failing
| way too many people in Canada that it's inevitable people
| Will take their health and the health of their loved ones
| into their own hands by necessity.
| techdragon wrote:
| The problem is the lack of incentives to take the "huh
| that's interesting, but I don't know if I can trust it
| because it's published in a quack journal" ... and ever
| reproduce the research and get it into more trusted more
| prestigious journals.
|
| There's a reproducibility crisis in many fields of
| research, and medical research has _multiple_ confounding
| factors, the "no prestige in just redoing the research",
| lack of money for trying things that might fail to
| generate RoI for pharmaceutical companies, and the
| general medical research problems of clinical trails and
| ethics review and all the other stuff involved in good
| quality medical research.
|
| Consequently this stuff gets thrown in the quackery
| bucket and ignored. It's frustrating to see things that
| won't hurt anyone to try again and properly debunk or
| expand the evidence for, winding up in an ideological
| trench war where the outcome is getting to enter round
| two of the "funding your actual research" trench war.
| sokoloff wrote:
| If you had a legitimate research finding, why would you
| publish it in a quack journal?
|
| Presumably, because the more prestigious journals
| declined to publish it.
|
| Why did all of them decline to publish it? There was
| probably a reason. A paper being published in a quack
| journal does actually carry a signal about the quality of
| paper, IMO. No one turns down publishing in Cell or
| Neuron to publish in Donald's Journal o' Quackery and
| Crockpot Recipes.
| [deleted]
| mwbajor wrote:
| You know what you're right. But not far behind these quacks
| are neurologists.
|
| If you've ever had someone in your family that might have had
| Alzheimers or Parkinsons you'll know what I mean.
| glfharris wrote:
| I think that is being unfair. It's the sad reality that for
| many neurological conditions we don't have good treatments
| or cures. However, things like levodopa are godsends for
| many with Parkinsons, for example.
| tpoacher wrote:
| [flagged]
| surume wrote:
| God bless you for sharing this. Thank you.
| bitL wrote:
| Is it because of thiamine dysfunction or because thiamine at
| 2000x RDA doses acts as a carbonic anhydrase inhibitor, i.e.
| would acetazolamide work the same?
| wyldfire wrote:
| > 100 mg of thiamine administered intramuscularly twice a week
|
| Is it possible to get anywhere near this much with dietary
| thiamine?
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| > Is it possible to get anywhere near this much with dietary
| thiamine?
|
| High thiamine food stuffs have a few milligram at most so it
| would take some effort. However, many B1 vitamin tablets have
| 100mg-300mg, although I wonder how well that is absorbed
| compared with an intramuscular shot - it would seem that you
| could consume the equivalent of 200mg a week.
| bitL wrote:
| I read somewhere that gut can only let around 80mg
| thiamine/day and gut gets saturated over time, so only IM/IV
| would work long-term.
| [deleted]
| jtbayly wrote:
| If this Was discovered 10 years ago, I'm assuming it must be
| fairly limited in helping, or the results haven't lasted or
| something?
| Mizza wrote:
| The cynic in me assumes that it's because this is not a
| patentable drug.
|
| EDIT:
|
| MJF foundation is aware of it at least -
| https://www.michaeljfox.org/news/thiamine-vitamin-b1-and-
| par..., but points out problems with the study. Further
| Googling quickly leads to the usual quackery about the
| magical properties of different supplements and vitamins.
| Hope this goes somewhere though.
| robbiep wrote:
| This is such a horseshit characterisation of medical
| research.
|
| Everyone bangs in about the medical industrial complex, and
| points to either herbs and vitamins, or more recently
| ivermectin, or hydroxychloroquine.
|
| Everyone conveniently just rolls over the fact that
| steroids (also patent free) were rapidly identified by a
| massive research study in the UK, became standard of care,
| and saved hundreds of thousands of lives.
|
| Is the pharma industry broken? Yes. Are there doctors who
| are conveniently leaving the cheap things on the shelf so a
| pharma company can profit off misery? Doctors are people
| too. In the most extreme form of this conspiracy thinking,
| apparently no doctors get or die from cancer. Just think on
| that for a second
| _qua wrote:
| No way. About five years ago there was a quack-y study
| about reducing death in sepsis which called for high-dose
| vitamin C, thiamine and steroids. None of these are patent
| protected. The first study purported to show a 100%
| reduction in mortality. There were many RCTs done after
| this which did not bear out the effect, and it has now
| essentially been proven to be ineffective. it is possible
| to fund studies without industry money.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Who actually thought that steroids help with an
| infection? Don't those usually make you _more_
| susceptible?
| robbiep wrote:
| During COVID, steroids were rapidly identified as
| providing a positive survival benefit and became standard
| of care.
|
| There is actually a good reason to think that steroids
| are beneficial in severe infections. This is because
| often in a severe infection/inflammation, a big portion
| of the damage is done by the inflammatory response.
|
| Reading about the pathophysiology of influenza 13 years
| ago after H1N1, I came to this conclusion, and it was
| trialed, but good quality studies showed it to not be
| effective.
|
| COVID has a slightly different pathophysiology and in
| COVID it works.
|
| But yea, as a rule, it's not a good idea to dose with
| steroids if sick
| vitus wrote:
| If most of the actual harm is being done by your immune
| system going into overdrive, then yeah, steroids can
| help. You'd want to simultaneously treat the infection,
| of course.
|
| "Multiple randomized trials indicate that systemic
| corticosteroid therapy improves clinical outcomes and
| reduces mortality in hospitalized patients with COVID-19
| who require supplemental oxygen, presumably by mitigating
| the COVID-19-induced systemic inflammatory response that
| can lead to lung injury and multisystem organ
| dysfunction."
|
| https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/therapies/
| imm...
|
| But yes, you're also right that it usually makes you more
| susceptible to infection because your immune system isn't
| working as hard.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I can see that in some cases. I doubt that would be
| beneficial in the case of sepsis, right?
| vitus wrote:
| Actually, it's complicated, and there really isn't
| consensus one way or another.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5949415/
|
| "Seventeen meta-analyses of these studies have been
| performed and have similarly shown conflicting results
| with some demonstrating a survival advantage (4-6) while
| other have not (7-10). Consequently, true equipoise
| exists with regards to the clinical benefit of
| corticosteroids in patients with severe sepsis and septic
| shock.
|
| ...
|
| In summary, the use of corticosteroids in patients with
| severe sepsis and septic shock is not associated with
| improved patient centered outcomes, however this
| treatment is safe and without an increased risk of
| complications. Corticosteroids appear to have synergistic
| biological effects when combined with intravenous vitamin
| C and thiamine and may be associated with improved
| patient centered outcomes (21)."
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8604467/
|
| "In this review article, we reviewed a total of eight
| different articles being done in last 10 years, relevant
| to the clinical outcome and effects of corticosteroids.
| Among those, two demonstrated improved clinical outcomes,
| two showed both improved clinical outcomes and decreased
| mortality, three showed increased adverse effects, and
| the remaining one showed unequivocal results."
| giantg2 wrote:
| Interesting
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Chronically, yes. Sometimes they can help address a more
| serious acute issue.
| insanitybit wrote:
| I've taken steroids when I had a virus because the
| symptoms caused by the virus were severe. The doctor made
| it clear that I should take it as little as possible, but
| it was "your throat is going to close up OR it takes a
| little longer to get better".
| giantg2 wrote:
| There is a fair amount of research on diet and nutrition.
| Much of that is not patentable. For example, I think a
| recent one was all over the news about magnesium rich foods
| lowering risk for dementia. Unfortunately this area sees a
| lot of back and forth in some areas (like with eggs).
| bitL wrote:
| Most doctors would laugh at vitamin supplementation even at
| pharmaceutic megadoses despite people reporting they feel
| much better. I have seen both GPs and a neurosurgeon laughing
| about it.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| When in doubt, just throw the kitchen sink at the problem.
|
| https://www.hangoverkw.com/
| cycomanic wrote:
| https://www.michaeljfox.org/news/thiamine-vitamin-b1-and-par...
|
| The Michael J Fox foundation is more muted and says evidence is
| still missing. There have only been 2 trials and both were
| missing a placebo control group.
| oefnak wrote:
| Imagine having Parkinsons and being in the placebo control
| group.
| wyldfire wrote:
| Today we should assume that it's harmless to get the
| placebo.
|
| Only if a trial shows extraordinary consistent benefit
| without drawbacks would they stop it because the placebo
| group is harmed for lack of access to the treatment.
| DavidPiper wrote:
| I used to share this sentiment for Parkinsons and other
| currently-intractable conditions. I still do sometimes,
| depending on the circumstances of the patient in question.
|
| But the thing that stopped me generalising this was seeing
| second-hand that trialing a new treatment can be
| extraordinarily dangerous (and/or fatal).
|
| Imagine being in the experiment group and the untested
| treatment being a catastrophic failure.
| mypalmike wrote:
| Being part of a rigorous process by which a cure may be
| found? Sign me up.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| You're thinking that even a gamble on untested / unverified
| treatment might improve their lives; it might, but it might
| also do nothing, make it work, or worst case kill them.
|
| But I get it. My partner has an untreatable condition (like
| EDS, but without the genetic markers); they'd jump on any
| kind of hope, even experimental at this point.
| NobleLie wrote:
| Imagine symptoms improving being in the placebo group?
|
| What are the statistics on _that_?
| huhtenberg wrote:
| It's for the US and Canada only.
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| Take a look at zinc instead. It helps increase the activity of
| enzymes that break down alpha-synuclein.
|
| https://academic.oup.com/hmg/article/23/11/2791/621896
| hanniabu wrote:
| This further assures my thought that Parkinsons is caused by
| gut bacteria
| aintgonnatakeit wrote:
| The first study has 3 patients. The second study is a little
| better, but not by much. Both have the same first author. If
| this were legitimate, some academic medical center in the US
| would have picked it up. Parkinson's is a huge target, and this
| kind of thing makes a career. This is likely on the same level
| as horse dewormer for COVID.
| logicchains wrote:
| >This is likely on the same level as horse dewormer for COVID
|
| You mean something that's demonstrated to have a
| statistically significant protective effect in a majority of
| studies but was attacked mercilessly by the pharma industry
| and the media they fund because they can't profit from a
| generic drug like that? https://c19ivm.org/meta.html
| defrost wrote:
| Looks great .. dive in (talk to your local professional
| epidemiologist) and it's a skewed collection of low N
| studies mixed in with studies in regions with large
| intestinal parasite issues.
|
| Does horse dewormer do anything significant for large
| populations in first world countries?
|
| No. ( _Save for regions with a intestinal parasite problem_
| )
|
| Elsewhere it gets rid of a significant number of parasites,
| making people healthier, and improving their chances WRT
| everything else, the common cold, influenza, COVID, etc.
|
| If you have worms, take a dewormer course.
|
| If you don't .. it won't do diddly squat for COVID.
|
| Statistics!! (Sometimes there's correlation but that ain't
| always causal).
| [deleted]
| linuxftw wrote:
| Ivermectin is a protease inhibitor, among other possible
| mechanisms. They developed Paxlovid to work in a similar
| way, but it seems to be not effective whatsoever.
|
| Then you have Remdisiv, which definitely killed 10's of
| thousands of people, if not more. That's the real story
| of COVID, at least in the US. The countless people that
| were experimented on with one of the most dangerous drugs
| to be invented in recent times.
| sixQuarks wrote:
| [flagged]
| defrost wrote:
| Fair point, it's also effective against a wider range of
| parasites, head lice, eyelash mites, and skin conditions.
|
| In the case of COVID in populations sans those conditions
| .. not so much.
| sixQuarks wrote:
| In addition to head lice and eyelash mites, it might also
| be useful to point out it is the only drug to win a Nobel
| Prize for treatment of infectious diseases. Used by
| BILLIONS of people. May I remind you that you referred to
| this drug as a horse dewormer before you were called out.
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34466270/
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Appeal to authority & false equivalence (apples &
| oranges); just because it's won a nobel prize doesn't
| mean it's a miracle cure against the 'rona.
|
| I'm already dubious of the article you linked because the
| title uses appeal to authority (nobel prize winning) and
| emotional language (new global scourge).
|
| I won't disagree that ivermectin improves life expectancy
| in some of those studies, but it doesn't seem to be
| effective in environments with less parasites.
|
| Note also that it focuses on fatalities, not getting the
| disease, curing it faster than its natural course, or
| preventing it.
|
| For a great meta-meta research, see
| https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/ivermectin-much-
| more-t...
| sixQuarks wrote:
| I didn't even say anything about covid. I was refuting
| that it should be referenced as horse dewormer. You seem
| to have some major bias as well.
| meepmorp wrote:
| The fact that the only part of everything they said you
| have any response for is the term they used to describe
| the medication, and then used it to dismiss anything else
| - that doesn't make you seem especially free of
| irrational thinking yourself.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Red herring fallacy, as a response to tone policing or
| dictionary or whatnot.
| meepmorp wrote:
| not an argument and fallacy fallacy
| okeuro49 wrote:
| > This is likely on the same level as horse dewormer for
| COVID.
|
| That something sounds strange doesn't particularly lead me to
| question the likelihood of efficacy.
|
| The evidence on something's efficacy leads me to question
| something's efficacy.
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